You can use a two level cache.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Cache::MemoryCache;
use Cache::FileCache;
my $file_cache = new Cache::FileCache();
my $mem_cache = new Cache::MemoryCache();

my $customer = $mem_cache->get($ARGV[0]);
if( not defined $customer ){

 $customer = $file_cache->get($ARGV[0]);
 if( not defined $customer ){

    print "setting cache\n";
    $customer->{'email_address'} = 'foo@foo.com';
    $customer->{'first_name'} = 'foo';
    $customer->{'last_name'} = 'bar';
    $customer->{'id'} = $ARGV[0];
    $file_cache->set($ARGV[0], $customer, "10 minutes" );
  }
  $mem_cache->set($ARGV[0], $customer, "10 minutes" );
}
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Note: untested, and may contain logic errors.